The 2022 Bundesliga season is underway, and football fans around the world have access to two new Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS. Match Facts are a set of in-game advanced statistics using real-time data to quantify the action on the pitch. They offer insights into a team’s playing strategy and defining moments during a game, giving fans an enhanced viewing experience through rich storytelling.

“Set Piece Threat” delivers new perspective on a team’s scoring ability from plays like free kicks and corner kicks, while “Skill” compares and characterizes Bundesliga players to quantify the skills they bring to their teams and positions.

Introducing Face-off Probability, a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) tool powered by AWS, built by analyzing over 200,000 face-offs combined with 10 years of historical player data.

With these additions, there is now a portfolio of 10 Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS to help fans better understand factors like the strategy involved in decision making on the pitch and the probability of a goal for each shot. The league generates the Match Facts by gathering and analyzing data from live game camera feeds as they’re streamed into AWS. From there, Bundesliga uses AWS capabilities in analytics, machine learning, compute, storage, database, serverless, and media services to glean insights and generate predictions. AWS and Bundesliga then train, deploy, and scale the machine learning models used to generate them and deliver them as on-screen graphics during broadcasts and in the official Bundesliga app. Fans, coaches, players, and commentators can use them as visual support for analyzing a team’s decision making.

“The pace of the players, the action on the pitch—Fußball is nonstop action. Brilliant plays can happen in a blink of an eye. We created the Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS to enrich the match experience for millions of fans worldwide, with real-time insights that deepen the viewer’s knowledge and appreciation of the sport and player actions,” said Andreas Heyden, executive vice president of digital innovations for DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga. “Together with AWS, we’re adding a whole new dimension to the sport, with innovative in-game perspectives that give context on game strategy to help redefine how the world watches football.”

Understanding the new Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS

Set Piece Threat

An image of professional players on a soccer field. There is an overlay showing play stats from AWS Match Facts.
An image of professional players on a soccer field. There is an overlay showing play stats from AWS Match Facts.

In modern football, teams score more than a quarter of all goals from set pieces like free kicks and corner kicks. Until now, fans had no reliable way of assessing the threat a team poses from different types of set pieces. “Set Piece Threat” quantifies a team’s threat by comparing the team to the league average. Bundesliga computes threat values for offense and defense situations to show how much of a threat a team is with their set pieces. During live broadcast games, video editors can use “Set Piece Threat” ahead of free kicks and corner kicks to show how much more danger exists in the current matchup compared to the league average or whenever match commentators want to talk about set pieces and the related strength of a team.

Skill

An image of professional players on a soccer field. There is an overlay showing play stats from AWS Match Facts.

In addition to their exceptional fundamental talent, every player in the Bundesliga brings some specialized skills to the game that complement those of their fellow players and make their team stronger. The new “Skill” Match Fact combines and compares the cumulative stats of every Bundesliga player to assess their skills across different categories. The stat features four player profiles: a “Finisher” who excels at scoring goals (both the number and efficiency); a “Sprinter” who generates high maximum speed and can get farther on the field than other players; an “Initiator” who accumulates, assists, and makes a high number of difficult passes that lead to assists; and a “Ball Winner” who is able to create a lot of turnovers from the opposing team by winning the ball in a duel or intercepting an opponent’s pass. Bundesliga ranks each skill by combining several metrics into one score. If a player ranks in the league-wide Top 10 for a given skill, Bundesliga will highlight this player in the live broadcast or in the Bundesliga app when substitutions are shown.

Find more information on Match Facts statistics.